A Familiar Vastness
by grayseeker
Summary: A meteor shower, a clandestine meeting, and the distance between stars.


Happy New Year! It's been quite a while since I've had anything suitable for posting here, but this story is as G-rated as it gets (for me), so here goes. I wrote it as a thank-you and New Year's greeting to all my amazing readers - including you!

 _Once beneath the stars_  
 _The universe was ours_  
 _Love was all we knew_  
 _And all I knew was you_  
 _I wonder if you know_  
 _I wonder if you think about it_  
 _Once upon a time_  
 _In your wildest dreams_

 _Your Wildest Dreams_  
~ The Moody Blues

The wind had stopped. Not altogether; just where I happened to be sitting. I was perched on a high ledge in the shadow of a mountain crag. Below, the wind combed rough fingers through the pines. Their low sighs, rising on an updraft, seemed louder now. Now that the wind up here had… stilled.

I turned, glancing up… and up. He smiled. Because of course, I already knew who was blocking the wind with his broad, solid frame and his great wings. In all the time I'd known him, it had never failed to amaze me that someone as big as Skyfire could move with such stealth.

"Sneaking up on Decepticons is a good way to get shot," I said.

His smile didn't falter. "I'll keep that in mind."

"What took you so long? Running errands for the Autobots?"

"Possibly." He sat down without waiting for an invitation, positioning himself between me and the wind. "I got here as soon as I could."

"I _could_ have shot you," I repeated, since it apparently warranted emphasis.

The bond between us rippled almost imperceptibly. "You couldn't tell it was me?"

"That isn't the point."

I wasn't looking at him, but I felt him smile. We weren't touching—yet, but I found myself leaning closer, seeking more of his heat against my wings. The air up was clear and cold, the day's warmth having long since slipped away. It put us closer to the stars, but I hadn't factored in heat loss.

"I'll be more careful next time," he promised. "What did you want to talk about?"

"Who says I want to talk?"

I flexed my wings toward him in an unspoken demand. Taking the hint, he settled his big hands between my shoulders and glided them outward, warm as sunlight on the upper edges of my wings.

"You don't know what tonight is, do you?" I prodded.

"Tonight?"

I sensed him mulling it over as his thumbs dipped into the gaps where my shoulders met my upper torso. I shivered, this time not from cold, my shoulders hunching into his broad palms.

"Come on, Sky." I tried for a tone of irritation, but my traitor frame was kindling to his touch. "You really don't know?"

A spear of white-hot brilliance streaked across the dark sky. His hands froze; I knew he'd seen it. When a second fiery streak followed, and another, he gave a throaty huff of recognition.

"The Perseid meteor shower. I must admit, I _had_ forgotten it was tonight."

"Had you, now? I wonder what _else_ you might have forgotten?"

He fell silent, then began to laugh. "Oh. _Oh!_ You're right. I'd forgotten that, too."

"Good thing you have me around to remember, then. It's not as if your Auto-buddies would have the slightest idea."

Well, unless they did, though I couldn't imagine Skyfire would have told them something so personal. Or maybe I just hoped he wouldn't.

"Yes." His hands left my shoulders, arms sliding around me. "It _is_ a good thing to have you around."

Somehow, that was the best possible response he could have given. It warmed me from within, just as his arms were warming me from the outside. I let my helm fall back, wings draping across his chest in answering warmth. Meteors fell like a rain of stars, and we were quiet for a long time. Eventually, his hand found mine.

"Thank you," he said, voice husky. "This is the best creation-date gift I could imagine."

Truthfully, I could imagine a number of scenarios I would have preferred. Such as doing this after having brought the war to an end with the Autobots crushed, Megatron gone, and Skyfire by my side. _Truly_ by my side, not these furtive meetings. But it was what it was. I let my fingers curl with his.

"Did you know that you were in the ice for almost exactly one hundred and eight thousand vorns?" I asked.

"I… suppose so," he said in the tone of someone who'd never done the actual math. "I try not to think about it too much."

"Your creation-date was coming up when you crashed. I'd planned on…" I paused. "It doesn't matter. I slept through it. I was drifting in deep space, comatose. By the time I made it back to Cybertron it was over." The sky above us was a battlefield, meteor-streaks zipping through the dark like bursts of ghostly laserfire. "I've never missed one since."

"You celebrated my…? Every vorn? For one hundred and eight thousand vorns?"

"One hundred and seven thousand," I corrected. "Tonight is the one hundred and eight thousandth. And celebrate would be a strong word. I did always observe it though, even if it was just in thought or remembrance."

"That's… a lot of times to remember something. Or someone."

As if I could have forgotten. As if I hadn't thought of him every day, planning for the time I'd be able to return to this wretched world and find him and make everything right.

"To you, it must seem like yesterday," I added, knowing that was the true nature of the gulf between us. The fact that I'd lived every moment of our separation, while for him it remained theoretical knowledge.

"It does seem like yesterday," he admitted. "And yet…" His hands slipped down my back, thumbs tracing the seams in my armor.

"And yet what?" I demanded. I was warm now, framed here in the shelter of his wings. I wanted to forget everything but his touch. Words were too complicated, and we were still strangers in too many ways. Touch was the one thing we had that still worked.

"And yet…" he began kneading the seam between my wings and thorax. "You still carry your tension in all the same places."

"So there _is_ one thing about me that hasn't changed."

"More than one, I'd say."

"Such as?"

He was quiet for a moment. "You still get angry when you're scared," he said at last, his hands continuing their hypnotic ministrations.

"Anything else?"

"You still strike out at anyone who notices your vulnerabilities," he added, "and you still can't admit you have needs."

 _"You're_ lucky you're good at this," I muttered, pressing into his hands. He obliged, adding more pressure. "What else?"

"You still take the hardest possible route to any goal; you still push me away when I know you just want to be—"

"All right, enough!" I growled. "I get the picture."

"Held," he finished. His arms encircled me, his bowed helm coming to rest against one of my intakes. "You're also very loving, though you can't admit it. And you're very generous."

I twisted to face him. _"Generous?"_

"You gave me the stars tonight. I'd call that generous." He offered a lopsided smile. "Kiss me."

I did. He returned the kiss, hands rising to frame my face. When we parted he leaned back against the crag, drawing me against him. We still fit so well, my frame settling in the crook between his arm and his side as if we'd been designed to curl into each other like this.

"I love you."

I gazed upward, into the heart of the battle. "I know that, Sky."

"It's not enough, is it?"

"Maybe… it's too much."

The distances between stars looked small from here, just like the distance between us. In reality, they were light-years apart. His hand cupped my face, drawing my gaze back to his.

"Never," he said. "There's no such thing as too much love."

In the blue stillness of his gaze, the battle raging above was just a field of stars. The streaks of light were just meteors, and space was a familiar vastness. We'd mapped it together, once.

I sighed. What was the point of arguing? He'd come back at me with that same, quiet insistence until I ran out of words. I didn't want to fight. Not when we were like this: him, me, and the stars. I leaned closer.

"You know, Sky…" I said, my hand tracing aimless patterns on his fuselage, "I'm generous in other areas, too."

That brought a laugh. "I do know." His arm slid down to curl around my waist. "But this has reminded me that I've missed one hundred and seven thousand of _your_ creation-date anniversaries too. Maybe I could start making up for them."

Now that was an intriguing thought. "Maybe you could."

With thrilling strength, he rolled me so that he was on top. "You can watch the stars this way."

The galactic core was framed between his wings. So many worlds, so many possibilities; all narrowed down to this one possibility, this brief span of hours before sunrise found us here.

"Where would you like me to start?" he asked.

"Same as you." I touched his lips. "Kiss me."

He did.

Above us, the night sprawled vast and serene. If the gulfs between stars were traversable, perhaps the divide between us could be crossed. In the stillness of this moment, the shelter of his wings, I could let that be enough.


End file.
